Life & Drums Episode 9

My talented drummer friend Jimmy Pemberton's latest episode of his popular Life & Drums series. In this episode I help him fulfill his wish to get a ride in a Shelby Cobra by introducing him to my car enthusiast brother. Of course we couldn't help ourselves and broke out a couple of spontaneous beats...

The Yamaha Recording Custom

Morris Les & the Stray Tones

From the vault

Amongus, performing First and Last at the Venus de Milo, Boston MA, 1994

Custom 20" Kick

Introducing my new custom 20"x 20" kick! A vintage maple shell from Keller that I stained and hand-lacquered with Pearl lugs and hardware. Since these photos were taken, I swapped out the Remo pinstripe for a coated Powerstroke 3. This drum kicks some sonic *ss with a punch rivaling a Marciano right hook.

"Holly's" Debut

That's right, I named the Yamaha Recording Custom drum set "Holly" after the girl responsible for saving them moments before being tossed into a dumpster. I played the first gig with them a week ago at an annual benefit in Wellesley and they sounded great. I forgot how much I love having an 8" tom in the line up.

Yamaha Recording Custom

My miracle Yamaha Recording Customs are almost finished. Thanks to DiCenso's Drum Shop for ordering the parts I needed to get this kit gig-ready. I freakin' love the look of this kit almost as much as its sound.

A Christmas Miracle in March

Attention all drummers!

Run - don't walk - to your nearest town dump and stand directly in front of the dumpster!

My next door neighbor called me yesterday and told me she has "...a few old drum parts we were going to throw away at the town dump." She explained that her church band had bought an electronic drum set and they didn't have a need for an acoustic set anymore. She had just taken them to the town dump where her husband was going to toss them into the dumpster.

I'll give that a moment to sink in.

Miraculously, at the last second better judgement prevailed as she decided to talk her husband out of throwing them away. Knowing her next door neighbor [me] is a drummer, she thought it was worth asking if I had any use for them.

Smart girl.

The drum parts were in the back of her truck and she asked me if I wanted to come take a peek in case I wanted them. I told her I'd be right over. Within seconds I was outside by her truck. To my surprise she had not only drum parts, but drums. Lots of drums. Two different drum sets to be more precise. Upon further inspection, the first set of drums turned out to be:

Pearl Export Series
9x12, 10x13, 16x16, 16x22 Black wrap with shell mounts.

Shells look like maple or poplar. This kit went to my friend and bassist/vocalist for One Moe Time, Frank Anes who was just telling me 2 weeks prior how he's longed to have a drumset for his home recording studio. He also told me he'd love to be able to click his heels together 3 times to get home - but that I could not help him with.

Then the biggest surprise of them all, the 2nd drum set:

A Yamaha Recording Custom!

Yes, you read that right!

7x8, 7x12, 8x13, 9x14, 12x15,14x22 Piano Black lacquer finish.

Using the model number I was able to track down the year/month these drums were made. Turns out they were manufactured in 1983 (nov/dec). I dismantled one of the drums (removed heads, all hardware, etc) and found that the bearing edges (the edge the drum head contacts the shell) are stained the same color as the interior - making these particular drums extremely rare and highly sought after. This is the drummers' version of finding a Picasso in their grandmothers' attic (except the drums aren't worth a million dollars).

9x14 and 12x15 toms with Yamaha 3-hole mount.

14x22 kick, 7x10 and 12x8 toms

8x12 tom badge.

7x8 tom.

9x14 and 12x15 toms with Yamaha 3-hole mount.

12x15 bearing edge stained the same color as the interior shell. Oh so very rare.

Now what?

First I need to take a moment to bow down before the drum gods in honor of their generosity to the mere mortal peon that I am. I know this is a once in a lifetime - scratch that - less than a once in a lifetime opportunity. It's safe to say I have used up all my "free drums" coupons by now.

My next steps are to strip all the heads and hardware off these drums and examine each bearing edge and shell for dings and cracks. Then I'll buff out as many scratches as I can and polish the finish back to near new condition. The 12" tom has some serious road rash on it that I may consider having professionally refinished.

I will likely not reinstall the factory tom mounts and upgrade to a rim suspension mount system for optimal resonance. My preferred setup would be to use the kick, 8" and 12" rack toms and the 15" and 16" floor toms. There would be little need to include the 13" tom from a musical standpoint with the sizes so close together. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth but the lack of a 10" tom is surprising and kind of a bummer. But that's not a complaint (in case the drum gods hear me and suck these babies back up to the heavens or wherever gods hang out these days).

I'll continue to post my progress/photos as I restore what I now refer to as my "Miracle RCs". I plan on gigging with them as the "M-RCs" begin their new life under my care.


Damage
So far it looks like only cosmetic damage. The hoops don't look bent and the shells don't look like they are cracked or split. Quite the opposite really, these shells look almost like they came off the factory assembly line yesterday. Overall the scratches are minor but the 12" tom does have some serious scarring in one area - probably from the snare being rested up against it. You can see down to the bare wood but this side will not be visible to the audience and so it's now there to add character to the drum. The 8" tom has similar scarring most likely from the hi-hats coming in contact with it - again, not easily seen when positioned on the kit. Not a big deal.

The 13" has some slight scratches that might actually buff out if I try hard enough.

Restoration

Unfortunately these drums are banged up quite a bit. Each drum has its share of scuffs, scrapes and scratches. But after buffing and polishing the 12x15, most of the minor scratches and surface blemishes disappeared and suddenly the finish came back to life. I use ordinary car polishing compound and an oribital buffer to do the heavy work. Most of the surface scratches disappeared as well some foreign substances I could not identify. I also hand polished each lug and hoop and the chrome is still flawless! Yamaha's chroming is just so high in quality and has held up nicely over the last three decades. There's absolutely no pitting or discoloration whatsoever.

12x15 cleaned, polished and tuned

A drop of lubricant on the tension rod threads before installing is always good practice. I use T9 Bicycle Oil becuse if it's good enough for bicycle mechanics, it's certainly good enough for tension rods. It also makes tuning a bit easier if not more precise.

With a little help from the Drum Dial, this drum came back to life in a big way. Its got a nice fat "thud" with a decent amount of resonance - just what you'd expect from a 29 year old RC. The only caveat is the slight buzz coming from the breather hole gromet. I'm going to have to find a way to secure it without damaging the shell.

One down, five to go.

The 8" shell after a quick polishing. It's amazing how easily this finish comes alive. It's the kind of black you look into, not at.

Here's the 8" tom cleaned, buffed, polished and assembled.

Kick Drum
Kick drums usually suffer the most from dings, scratches or worse. But miraculously the 14x22" shell had barely a scratch on it. The only slight dings were on the very bottom of the shell and completely out of sight when set up normally. The birch wood hoops on the other hand did suffer some deep scratches - especially the batter side hoop - where the pedal clamps to the hoop is especially worn. It's obvious the previous owner(s) didn't bother to use any kind of protective rubber padding in this area. But when the drum is fully assembled, it's barely noticeable and more importantly, none of these aesthetic blemishes affect the sound in anyway.

I used the Evans EMAD head that was already installed because it's in great shape and the foam ring was still intact. Without any interior baffling and a reso head with a small hole cut out of it, I was able to get a nice fat thud with that classic RC birch wood overtone. The 14x22" Yamaha RC kick sound is unique in this way. My other kick drums are 18" deep and while I love the extra low end I get from them, the 14" depth of the RC provides a bit more of a kidney punch since the air doesn't have to move as far as the 18" providing a quicker response from the reso head.

I had never tried a KickPort before and picked one up at DiCenso's Drum Shop today to see if they really live up to their claim. I can honestly say there's a very noticeable difference after installed it - even from behind the kit.

There was some overspray covering 1/2 of this drum from a careless spray gun - but it buffed out quite easily and if anything, probably did more to protect the lacquer finish as opposed to hurting it.

Prototype from Jojo Mayer and Sabian

Jojo Mayer & Nerve played the Wonder Bar in Allston, MA last week and of course I was there. I couldn't help notice his 2nd snare had some crazy looking rings on it. Jojo's Sonor kit was setup to the far side of stage-left allowing me to stand close enough to almost look down it. Upon closer inspection, the rings looked like 14" cymbals that had about 12" of their center cut out. Top ring had holes drilled evenly spaced about 1 - 2" apart. The outside edge of the rings rested on the snare head and inside the hoop while the inner edge of the rings came up off the snare head and just slightly higher than the rim. This meant the stick would contact the head, inner edge of the ring and the hoop on a rim shot.

The small black box on top of the snare was Jojo's montior pack (he uses ear buds) and the object pictured at 9:00 on the snare is a basic clamp style muffler.

I asked Jojo personally what the rings were and he told me they are a protoype he is working on with Sabian and that they are very expensive to make. That said, I hope this goes to market because it sounded very cool. Jojo took the stage and played the snare with the protoype rings about 80% of the entire 2 sets. The best way to describe the sound would be a 1980's drum machine. It had a very short metallic thwack with just the right combination of acoustic and mechanical sound.

As cool as this stacker ring (so to speak) was, it bounced completely off the snare several times throughout the performance. Jojo had to keep playing while fumbling for the bouncing rings which makes me think he'll be going back to Sabian to figure out a way to keep the rings stationary on top of the drum.

See the actual performance here (the date is a typo - it should read "2012").

DrumDial

For years I thought I was pretty accurate tuning drums by ear. Before testing the DrumDial I retuned my 10" and 14" toms (both batter and resonant heads) just to see how accurate I really am. The DrumDial revealed that I was for the most pretty accurate with the 10" tom but way off with the 14" tom. In fact, one tension rod was off by almost a full turn! I'm truly amazed!

DrumDial's instructions mention that most toms will be tuned to "75". If you haven't used a DrumDial before, that number will seem arbitrary. Go here to learn how the DrumDial works. I went with their recommendation and tuned the batter heads on both toms to 75. The reso heads I tuned to 74, also recommended by DrumDial. I personally always tune my reso head slightly lower or higher depending on the drum to get that bend effect in the drum's tone.

Tuning both drums with the DrumDial took no more than 5 minutes. When I was done I mounted them back on the kit and played a groove. With the first fill around the toms I could hear a noticable difference! Seriously, the toms sound significantly fuller and warmer to me than before. I'm impressed by the DrumDial and it is completely worth the $60 I spent on it. I'd write more but I'm going to tune the rest of my drums and then move on to the Gretsch kit!